The invention relates to neural networks and to using neural networks to perform image restoration.
Image restoration refers to a process that attempts to reconstruct or recover an image that has been degraded by using some a priori knowledge, usually about the degradation process. It is to be contrasted to another process commonly referred to as image enhancement. Both share the common goal of trying to improve the image according to some measure of image quality. The former, however, tries to extract what the actual image was from knowledge about the degradation process or from "hints" found within the image itself. The latter tries to make the image more "pleasing" to the human visual system by manipulating it in ways which accentuate the "pleasing" aspects of the image such as, for example, contrast.